Hey gang,
I was watching the Leviathan (or Leviathon?) episodes recently and I was mightily "impressed" with the great degree of "alacrity" and apparent "professionalism" which the Collinsport Fire Department employed in putting out the fire at the Todd antique shop, located conveniently in downtown Collinsport.
Heck, by the time that the, presumably, volunteer fire brigade arrived there, the Todd antique shop was completely finito. Evidently, the C.F.D. was about as "on-the-ball" as were Sheriffs Patterson and Davenport (May he rest in peace/pieces.) in their seemingly neverending and unfailingly fruitless searches for the killer(s) of all of those Collinsport towns people over the years. I venture to say that more residents of Collinsport were "offed" between 1968-to-1970 than were citizens of Philadelphia during a similar three-year time span!
By the way, did the "crack" Collinsport homicide detectives
really believe that the meek and mellow Phillip Todd, looking ever-so-sharp in that ubiquitous cardigan sweater of his, had knocked-off all of those people by somehow "sliming" and singeing them? (Years later, when I saw Bill Murray get "slimed" in "Ghostbusters" by a malevolent entity, I thought that that evil entity might be a possible kindred spirit of Jeb Hawkes'.)
And, just who comprised the members of the Collinsport Fire Department? There could not have been very many younger men on the force. After all, most of the younger Collinsport men had either departed (usually violently) from this mortal coil or had simply blown town; Tom Jennings, Mr. Wells, and Bruno Hess falling into the former category, and Joe Haskell, Buzz Hackett (?), and possibly also Tony Petersen in the latter category. (Who the heck
knows what eventually happened to the hippie, Sebatian "Mr. Maine Moonbeam" Shaw, after Barnabas, Dr. Hoffman, and Prof. Stokes returned from 1840?)
Do you think that the senior members of the Collinsport Volunteer Fire Depatment would allow Harry "Itchy Fingers" Johnson or even Willie "Light Fingers" Loomis on the force? I don't think so! No former jail birds allowed, thank you very much.
So, who was left to make up the members of the C.F.D.? Possibly, such "spry" and "still-active" local citizens as the Eagle Hill Cemetery Caretaker ("This is a frightening, evil place," this faithful, Geritol-using senior citizen might have said about the Todd antique shop.), the venerable Prof. T. Elliott Stokes (still endeavoring to remain on Dr. Irwin Stillman's world-famous water diet) and the professor's fellow academic and, yet, still frisky, colleague, Prof. Henry (?) Osmund; and how about the fire squad's "baby" member, the fifty-something, bartender/proprietor of the Blue Whale himself, the inimitable Bob Rooney? (I can envision Bob calmly lighting up his stogie from the flames engulfing the antique shop, courtesy of Barnabas "The Pyromaniac" Collins.) No wonder the God-d@mned place burned completely to the ground!!!
So, here's to the brave and selfless members of the Collinsport Volunteer Fire Department; may their fire axes always be sharp, may their 1920 fire engine always be running in tip-top condition, and may their copious supplies of Flomax, Depends and Aricept never run out!!!
Bob the Bartender
PS In Memoriam (such former hallowed C.F.D. members as):
Ezra Braithwaite, Matthew Morgan, Charles Delaware Tate, Sam Evans and Bill Malloy